


Lies, and the Liars Who Tell Them

by emmaliza



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: (but he's only discussed here), Dreams and Nightmares, Dreamsharing, Gen, Guilt, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Torture, Ramsay is his own warning, Survivor Guilt, Violence, aggressively showverse, so many spoilers, theon cries a lot, truly amazing amounts of dysfunction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-24
Updated: 2016-07-24
Packaged: 2018-07-26 10:31:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7570744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmaliza/pseuds/emmaliza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Theon buries his head again, crying. Bran's starting to feel uncomfortable with this – alright, he felt uncomfortable with this from the beginning, but it's getting worse now. He feels like he's hurting Theon. He probably shouldn't care, after everything Theon did, but Bran hates watching him cry and he does it all the time now. The Theon he knew never cried. This isn't him. But neither was the Theon who hacked off Rodrik Cassel's head while Bran cried and begged him not to. Perhaps the Theon he knew was no real Theon at all."</p><p>Bran uses his powers to talk to someone he's not seen in many years. It's a painful experience for the both of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lies, and the Liars Who Tell Them

**Author's Note:**

> So, this was originally meant as a prompt fill: http://asoiafkinkmeme.livejournal.com/10986.html?thread=7200746#t7200746  
> "Theon: Those things I did... they weren't done out of hatred, I did them because I was stupid.  
> Response: It's all right, Theon. I know you're stupid."
> 
> ...but then it got wildly out of hand.
> 
> Also, do not read if you haven't finished season 6, because there are seriously all the spoilers.

The dreams don't make sense anymore. They're more like normal dreams, the dreams he had when he was a boy after scampering into the kitchens at night and eating cheese when he shouldn't. There's no three-eyed raven to guide him anymore, there certainly isn't Jojen. Only a mess of mystery and metaphor, and he does not know what is past and future.

He's a boy again, no older than ten but still a cripple, strapped into the saddle Tyrion Lannister designed and riding through the woods. _What am I doing here?_ he wonders, looking at the trees to see if he recognises them. They're not weirwoods. But this place is familiar, and he realises he's in the forests outside Winterfell. Well that makes sense. He comes to a clearing and his horse stops, and he looks around, wondering what he's waiting for. Then he hears a voice.

_Come now, little lordling. We're going as south as south goes..._

Isn't this where they–?

Blood. A woman lying on the floor, knife in her neck, choking on her own blood. _Osha_. An arrow sailing, piercing a wildling's chest. Osha taking off her clothes. _We're going to have some adventures, you and I._ “Osha!” he calls, but the voice is gone. _He doesn't like chains!_ “Rickon!” Bran cries, searching. Where are they? A muddy field and another arrow. Rickon falls to the ground, trampled under foot by thousands of men. Back to the clearing, and the third arrow – it sails through the wildling man and hits Osha, pierces her heart.

Bran's fallen from his horse.

When he stands he _can_ stand, he's not a cripple, but he's a young man again. The horse is gone, and he finds a bow and arrow strapped to his back. He hears Robb and Jon laughing as he fails to practice. _Which one of you was a marksman at ten?_ He's had this dream before. He looks around for Jojen, but the boy is gone. He's been gone for years.

Is there anyone here at all?

Finally, covered by dirt and autumn leaves, a man is waiting for him. He stands with his face fixed on the ground, hair filthy and matted and hiding him. He wears only rags, and shivers like he's freezing – or petrified.

The man looks up, eyes wide and dead.

Bran reaches for his bow.

“Theon.”

This is not the Theon he once knew, who laughed and japed along with his brothers at dinner, who put an arrow through that wildling and told Bran he was a _tough lad_ , who hacked Ser Rodrik's head off while Bran screamed and begged, who burnt a boy's body and said it was Bran's.

Bran nocks an arrow.

He hears laughter, cruel and mocking in a voice he doesn't recognise. _If you make it out of the woods, you win!_ He looks around, but there's no-one there, only him and Theon. Theon's still staring, but he doesn't say a word.

_Theon Greyjoy, he didn't talk easily..._

Osha, choking on her own blood.

Bran draws.

Theon just keeps staring.

“You have to remember your name,” he manages, after forever.

Bran hesistates.

_Do you like games, little man?_

Bran shoots.

The arrow pierces Theon's heart and his mouth spurts with blood as his head turns up to the sky. But when it comes back down, it no longer has Theon's face. It has Rickon's.

Bran wakes with a start.

* * *

The men at the wall are remarkably understanding, considering. He fully expected them all to think he was mad, but they've seen things they never thought they'd see. But Jon is gone. He pulled himself through the snow in the hopes he'd see his brother again, and be able to tell him everything ( _like he's not really your brother?_ ). But he was gone, and so was his friend, the one who helped them through the wall. He's never met a single man here. He has no reason to trust them, and so Meera keeps an eye out, but so far they've been kind.

 The men are quick to explain, about the Boltons and Sansa and how Jon has reclaimed Winterfell, been proclaimed King in the North. It makes Bran smile, even if he'll never be able to go back there. They're home, and that's what matters. But he thinks he knew it already.

 The men are hesitant to explain what comes next. _Unfortunately... Your brother. Rickon. He was captured, and killed. The Umbers betrayed him to the Boltons. I'm sorry._

Bran gulps down his thick stew. Meera looks at him, eyes wide with sympathy. _He doesn't like chains!_ Bran's always known his sigils, he knows what the Umbers' is. He sent Rickon to stay with them. He told his little brother he'd be safe there.

 “Osha,” he says, and the men of the Night's Watch look at him like he's speaking in tongues. “The wildling woman. There was a wildling woman with him, at least, there should have been. What happened to her? Did she die too?”

 Meera moves to take his hand. _You didn't even like her,_ Bran thinks, but he lets her anyway. This isn't Meera's fault. He shouldn't take it out on her. The men look at each other uncomfortably.

 “A lot of wildlings died in that fight, kid,” says one of them, “A lot of them women.”

 The men leave him on his own to take it in. But Meera stays, because of course she does, she's been by his side through everything. “Bran...” she says, squeezing his hand. He can just hear her. _I'm so sorry. Is there anything I can do? This isn't your fault, Bran._

 “Don't,” he says, because he can't bear those words, not now. So she lets go of his hand, because that's all she knows she's done, even though he didn't want her to.

 Rickon, running for his life across a muddy field, toyed with like a mouse, then struck from behind inches from Jon. Osha, lying on the floor, knife in her neck, choking on her own blood. He already knew. Isn't that the point of him?

 “Bran, I know how hard this is–”

 “You don't know _anything_ ,” Bran hisses at her.

 There's a pause as Bran tries to work out what he meant by that. _You don't belong here with me,_ he wants to tell her. _Go before I get you killed too._

 But isn't that, more or less, what he told Rickon?

 “...My brother's dead too, Bran.”

 Bran cringes. He feels like the worst man who has ever lived.

 But he just can't bring himself to _say_ anything, he can't even bring himself to look at her. That leaves her nothing to do but sigh and stand, and walk out on him.

 “Meera, wait–” he calls, but it's no use. She's already gone, and it's not like he can follow her.

* * *

The next dream is a little more coherent. He's back where he was, as a boy riding through the woods, but without the flashes of blood and death. He thinks of Osha, and Rickon, but he doesn't see them. _Will I see him?_  Bran wonders. _Should I try and find him?_

He doesn't want to find Theon. He would probably be happier if he forgot Theon ever existed at all. (He's done his best for the last four years). But he realises he'll never get out of this labyrinth if he doesn't see him again, and so he tries.

He has to concentrate so he's walking, not riding. Everything's gone dark and the ground sways under his feet. He starts to worry, thinking dead men might grab him from below, but as he squints he realises that's not it. He's on a ship, somewhere, below deck where the cabins are. The movement beneath his feet is just the sea. _Just._ He knows which door to open, and yet he hesitates before he goes through.

There lays Theon, on his side in the bed, knees pressed tight to his chest like he can hide his whole body inside itself. He doesn't look like he did last time – his hair is clean and cut shorter, his clothes are whole. But his eyes are the same. He's wearing a lot of clothes – two nightshirts and his breeches, and Bran frowns, realising it's not cold. He doesn't think he's been anywhere as hot as this, Theon is boiling, he knows it, and yet the man does not think to remove a layer. Bran knows he was asleep before he came in, and yet the second he sees Theon, those dead eyes are wide and wary. It's the middle of the night and yet his candle still burns, shadow flickering across Theon's face.

“This is a dream,” Theon whispers through the vicious silence. “You're not really here.”

 _Something like that,_ Bran thinks, but he can't fashion it into words. He opens his mouth and finds he can't say a thing. Because really, what is there to say? Why isn't Theon dead? Why isn't Bran dead, if Theon put so much effort into killing him? Why aren't they both rotting underground where Rickon and Osha are, where they never have to see each other again?

(Osha wasn't buried, he knows. Ramsay fed her to his dogs.

Who's Ramsay?)

Bran closes his eyes so he doesn't have to flash through anything else – he doesn't mind the visions, but he wishes he could control them; he hates barely seeing blood and suffering and always having to go back so he knows who it's happening to. Theon is still just laying there, tense like he's ready to flee but Bran knows he won't.

No, it's not Bran who knows that.

Bran takes a step forward and Theon shivers, turning his head to hide in the covers. _He looks like a child._ He remembers when he was a child, before all this started. When he was eight he remembers he sprained an ankle, and it hurt so much he spent half the afternoon crying. He tried to hide it, tried to be tough and stoic like a knight, but he was just a boy. He remembers Robb laughing softly as he tucked him into bed, telling him not to worry, he'd be crying too.

He remembers Theon laughing, not as softly.

“Please,” Theon begs him, and Bran doesn't know what he wants (no, it's not him who doesn't know what Theon wants) but it doesn't matter. Why should he listen to Theon? He keeps walking, one foot after another until he's perched on the edge of Theon's bed, ready to strike. What exactly is he going to do?

“Theon,” he says, and he hates the sound of his own voice, he sounds so _old_. “Theon, look at me.”

Theon does. He's shaking, crying, those eyes dead as they were in that forest. “Please,” he whimpers, and Bran doesn't know how they've come here – that he should feel so old and Theon should feel so young. He remembers he admired Theon, in a way, even if he was obnoxious and arrogant and annoying. But he always seemed so grown up, at least when Bran was ten. He was a child's idea of what it meant to be grown up. But last time Bran saw him, Theon was what, sixteen? Barely more than a child himself.

( _Seventeen,_ Bran reminds himself, _last time you saw him._ But he doesn't really know if that was Theon at all.)

Bran can't be older than sixteen now.

He reaches his hand out, not sure what he means to do with it. Theon flinches, eyes screwing shut. Suddenly, flashes – darkness, and the snapping of dogs, Osha and Rickon and crying, so much crying. _What is your name?_ and that laughter from before, strange and cruel, seeping into the memories like blood.

“...I'm not going to hurt you,” Bran says, and wonders whether it's true.

Theon looks at him, long and wary and then, finally, some spark of life returns to those eyes. Then Theon starts laughing.

“That sounds like something someone who was going to hurt me would say,” he mutters, and Bran's mouth hangs open, trying to respond.

He wakes up before he gets the chance.

* * *

The next dream doesn't make him go looking. He finds himself in a dungeon somewhere, completely in darkness, nothing but the scratching of rats for company. Until a flame suddenly blooms and in front of him is a cross, leather straps hanging loose. Between him and it sits Theon, half-naked in blood-stained breeches, knees pulled to his chest to cover himself, staring. It takes him a few moments to look at Bran.

“I should be up there,” he murmurs, and Bran doesn't understand. He doesn't want to understand.

“Ramsay,” he says, unable to stop the name coming out – this name that means nothing to him. “Who was he?”

Theon hesitates, and Bran hears a list of titles – _master, monster, m'lord, my everything_ – “Lord Bolton's bastard,” he says. Bran looks at the cross. Boltons. Of course.

(He saw Robb's death in a flash. There was so much – a knife and crossbows and the hacking of his head. He had to go back and watch it properly, hear those cold words. _The Lannisters send their regards,_ Lord Bolton had said, and put a knife through Robb's heart.)

“He killed Rickon,” he says, and hopes he will see Theon flinch. He doesn't. _Of course, why would you care,_ he thinks, but he realises soon that Theon does care – he feels the ache inside him, raw and bitter as his own. But he already knew. He knew the same way Bran knew – someone told him.

“And Osha.” Theon does flinch at that. He didn't know – he could guess, but he didn't know. _You didn't even know her,_ Bran thinks, but that's not quite true – he feels something, a memory of Theon's, warm and soft and bitter as grief. More flashes. Two girls, neither of them Osha, pretty girls – laughing and oh so fake. Then blood. So much blood. Bran didn't know men even had this much blood in them. A maester's kindly eyes, looking on in total horror – almost putting his scalpel to Theon's throat, putting him out of his misery, but never being brave enough to risk it.

Bran gasps as he draws out of the memory, but the pain lingers. _I didn't want to understand._ Theon is trembling, knotting mutilated fingers together, looking at the door. He's waiting for something to happen. Bran just stares, doing much the same.

“He didn't kill you,” Theon says.

“No,” Bran says.

“...You probably just starved to death anyway,” he mutters, and Bran frowns. Then he realises – Theon thinks this is all just a dream. Then Bran realises he doesn't think this is just a dream – he never has, from the beginning he knew he was dealing with Theon, the real Theon, whoever that even is.

“No. No I didn't,” he's walking closer now, and he wishes Theon would stand so he didn't have to feel so imposing. He's trying not to frighten Theon, really, but it seems impossible to avoid. “It's hard to explain, but I am not dead. I went north and I am not dead.”

 _Everyone who went north with me is_ , he thinks. No, that's not true. Meera. He has to hold on to Meera.

“Liar,” says Theon, voice shaking. He doesn't want to believe it. If he believes Bran's not dead, he has to forgive himself for him. And he doesn't want to do that. Why doesn't he–?

Theon buries his head again, crying. Bran's starting to feel uncomfortable with this – alright, he felt uncomfortable with this from the beginning, but it's getting worse now. He feels like he's hurting Theon. He probably shouldn't care, after everything Theon did, but Bran hates watching him cry and he does it all the time now. The Theon he knew never cried. This isn't him. But neither was the Theon who hacked off Rodrik Cassel's head while Bran cried and begged him not to. Perhaps the Theon he knew was no real Theon at all.

“Luwin,” Bran mutters, and he doesn't know why he thinks of him but he does, eyes kind and pained, like that other maester looking at Theon as he – no, it's nothing to do with that, Luwin has nothing to do with that. Theon looks up at him again, looking like he can barely speak.

“...Did Ramsay...?”

“No,” Bran says. “He never got a chance. One of your ironborn gutted him before Ramsay even showed up, just because he asked what was going on.”

Theon looks away, burying his head in his knees again. _You are not the man you are pretending to be,_ Bran hears. _He was trying to help me. He always wanted to help me, no matter what I did, and I killed him. I_ killed _him, like I killed those boys–_

Bran swallows the lump in his throat. “Stop it.”

Theon tries, Bran knows he tries, but he can't and it only makes Bran angrier. “I said stop it!” _No, you stop it, you're being cruel,_ Bran tells himself, but he's too far gone now. “Stop crying. You don't have the right to cry for him, you don't have the right to cry for any of it. It wouldn't have happened without you! Without you, they'd all be alive, we'd be back home and _safe_.” Theon still won't stop crying, and of course he won't because Bran is telling him the most awful things, and he wants to stop but he can't. Instead he grabs Theon by his hair and _yanks._ Theon whimpers in pain. His hair is lighter than it was, thin and brittle, and Bran wants to pull it all out of his head.

“Everything he did to you, you did to yourself. So why are you crying?” _Stop it!_ he's screaming at himself, but just when the thinks he might the voice in his head changes so he's younger, screaming _stop it, Theon, please, don't do this!_ Theon just sits there, and if it weren't for the crying you'd think he was dead, but Bran hears words rattling around his brain. _Reek, Reek, it rhymes with weak; Reek, Reek, it rhymes with weak; Reek, Reek, it rhymes with–_

_Hodor!_

Bran flinches and tries not to remember. “They trusted you,” _we trusted you,_ he should say, but he doesn't. “Everyone trusted you. Everyone _loved_ you.” _Liar,_ thinks Theon and it does not calm Bran down. “You let everyone down! You let them all _die_ because you were stupid, you were a stupid selfish little boy who wanted impossible things and now you have nothing, you are _nothing_ –”

“Bran.” There's a hand on his wrist, stopping him. Theon stares up at him, eyes red and bloodshot but he's stopped crying. “...Bran, what happened?”

_He knows. He knows what I've done._

It's absurd, how could Theon possibly know anything, but the thought of it makes Bran start to shake. He bites his lip. _Please, I don't want to_ – he collapses to his knees, gasping for air, and when he tries to speak nothing comes out but a choked sob.

“Bran,” and he's pulled into Theon's arms, crying like he's a child again, and Theon is comforting him after he's scraped his knee. _Theon would never have done this,_ Bran thinks, but he leans into it regardless, pressed against Theon's chest – knocking his head against bones, the muscle all withered away. He feels three fingers softly stroking his hair.

“It's alright Bran, just tell me what's wrong,” Theon says, and Bran thinks he doesn't sound like himself at all – he sounds like Robb.

Bran doesn't tell him anything. He wakes up, like a coward.

* * *

When he wakes up, he finds Meera sitting by his bed. “Bran!” she says, visibly relieved. “Are you alright? You were crying in your sleep.”

 _Was that me, or Theon?_ he wonders, but it's not like Meera would know. “I'm alright,” he says, trying to wipe tears away and finding them dry. Meera looks unconvinced. “I just... had a dream.”

“About the White Walkers?” That's Meera, always practical. Bran knows that's what he should be using his powers for, not following a man who was once his brother, who betrayed him and stole his home and almost killed him, and putting the both of them through hell. He doesn't know what he even wants from Theon. Does he want to punish him? Forgive him? Just to see him again?

“No,” Bran says and Meera frowns thoughtfully.

“It's alright, you don't have to tell me,” she says and he sighs in relief. He has no idea how he would explain this to her. He can't even explain it to himself. “Anyway, we should get up for breakfast soon. 'Round here, there'll be none left if we're not fast.”

She moves to help him out of his bed and into the cart the men have thrown together for him, but he just can't stop himself thinking. “Meera,” he says, and she pauses. “Do you ever... blame me, for Jojen?”

She frowns. “Never,” she says, a little too quickly. Bran nods. “I don't blame you for anything.”

Bran scoffs. “You should blame me for Hodor, at least. And Leaf and Summer,” he says. Meera says nothing, but strokes his hair comfortingly. He pulls away. “It wouldn't have happened – they wouldn't have found us if I hadn't gotten _bored_ and gone wandering...”

“You didn't know,” Meera says.

“I thought I was the Three-Eyed Raven. I thought I knew everything.” Meera can only sigh sadly at him. “That's not even mentioning what I _did_ to Hodor...”

“You _didn't know._ ”

“Wyllis. I should call him by his real name.” Bran pretends like he didn't hear her, and he knows he should stop, he knows he's hurting her. Why can't he seem to stop himself hurting people?

“I told you to warg into him,” Meera says.

“Don't.”

“What?” Now she sounds angry. “If you can blame yourself for things you couldn't possibly have known would happen, so can I.”

Bran sighs. _But I don't want you to,_ he thinks, sounding like a child. It's pretty hypocritical of him, to cling to his own guilt and not let her share it. But he doesn't want to hurt her too, and making her feel guilty over the things he's done must hurt. None of it really makes sense and he decides not to tell her any more, because it's not like he even knows how to say it.

“Bran.” There's a hand on his jaw and she guides his head to look at him. “We need to eat.”

Of course, they need to eat. He needs to get up and deal with the Watch and talk about the White Walkers and fight them, because if he doesn't the world is doomed. Jojen knew all along that if he found Bran, he would die, and he did it anyway. Rickon and Osha, Jojen and the Three-Eyed Raven, and Summer and Leaf and Hodor – Wyllis – Ser Rodrik and those farmboys... they all died to get him here. And now he needs to get up and eat, so he can live, so their deaths mean anything at all.

(There are two people who brought him here who are not dead. Meera... and Theon.)

He manages a smile, and she smiles back. He takes her hand and she scoops him into the cart, and so their day begins.

* * *

He dreams again in the courtyard of Winterfell – he doesn't know if he expects to see the boys' bodies hanging from the gates, or perhaps the flayed men Ramsay Bolton littered the place with, or himself and his siblings playing as children, happy and ignorant. He doesn't see any of it. There isn't another soul there. It's not a real Winterfell at all, just a model of it, empty like no-one's ever lived there – like he's been shrunk and placed in one of those figurines the Maesters at the Citadel keep.

Theon is there, of course.

They stand at opposite ends of the yard, but with nothing to come between them, not even snow. It's cold as winter and yet the sun shines as bright as ever. They stare, not sure what to say. Bran's left just looking at Theon – he's put on weight, and his hair grows darker than it did before.

“You look better,” he says.

Theon doesn't say anything.

Bran tries to take a step toward him, then stops as Theon flinches and steps back. It's strange. He knows he can't trust Theon, and yet it hurts that Theon doesn't trust him. Even if, given how he behaved last time, he doesn't deserve it.

“I'm sorry,” he says. “For how I... I shouldn't have done that to you.”

Theon shrugs. “I've had worse.”

“That's _why_ I shouldn't have done it.” Theon doesn't respond. Bran sighs and thinks about Ramsay Bolton, and how much he hates him. He thinks of Rickon, murdered for a sick game. He thinks of Osha, murdered trying to protect Rickon. Ramsay Bolton killed people he loved – that would be enough for Bran to hate him ( _but_ I _killed people I loved,_ he thinks). But what he did to Theon... Bran knows he'll never be able to hate Theon for what he did. Not now. Not once the Gods have punished him so thoroughly – and wouldn't Ramsay Bolton love to be thought of as one of the Gods? The Boltons killed his brothers, they killed Osha, they stole his home and they stole his vengeance too.

And he's left with Theon, or Reek, or whoever he is.

“I asked once, if you hated us the whole time,” he says. “You never answered.”

“Don't you know the answer?”

He could know the answer. He could pry into Theon's mind and see what he really feels, what he always really felt, but he doesn't want to. He thinks of Hodor, whose mind he stole and broke. Bran doesn't trust Theon but he doesn't trust himself either.

Theon steps forward slowly, silently, like a beat dog not sure whether to cower or snap. “I tried telling myself I did. That anything else I felt toward your family was a trick I played on myself, because I didn't want to die, nothing more,” he says. “I almost fooled myself for awhile there. Sometimes I even did hate you. I hated being a prisoner. I hated getting up every single morning not knowing if it'd be the day I died. I hated knowing no matter how much I loved you, no matter how much you loved me, no matter if you called me brother or son or ward, you'd all kill me if my father stepped out of line.”

Bran was just a boy back then. He always knew Theon was a hostage, but he never really thought about what that word meant. Theon must have thought about it every day.

“And now?” Bran asks.

“Well, let's just say now I know there are worse things you can do to a prisoner than kill them.”

Bran flinches. He doesn't want Theon to love them just because they were kinder to him than Ramsay Bolton. The White Walkers would have been kinder than Ramsay Bolton.

Theon manages to look him in the eye. “Sometimes I hated you. But not the whole time. Most of the time, I loved the lot of you... and wanted to think you could love me too.”

“We did love you,” Bran says. “At least I did.” And that is true – Theon was a brother to him, nothing less, and it wouldn't have hurt so much, he wouldn't have wanted so badly to forget, if Bran didn't love him. If Theon didn't break his tiny little eleven-year-old heart.

Theon laughs softly to himself. “Well, now I know. I sure fucked that up, didn't I?” He's laughing again, like he used to, but it sounds so bitter – perhaps it was always bitter and Bran didn't realise – and Bran just hurts when he hears it. “I understand that you hate me.”

“I don't hate you,” he says. _Not most of the time._ “I forgive you.”

“Liar.”

Bran sighs. No, of course he doesn't forgive Theon, Theon knows that – he won't just forget that Bran grabbed his hair and screamed at him while he sobbed, and told him everything that happened to him – the things so terrible Bran can't even put words to them – was his own fault.

“I want to forgive you.”

That's true, or truer at least.

Bran finds himself walking forward, so they're closer together – but not close enough to touch, and not as close as they would have once stood without even thinking about it. Theon squints at him, searching his face for signs of danger.

“You didn't tell me,” Theon says and Bran starts, not sure what he's talking about for a second. “What happened. What you were screaming about that wasn't me.”

Bran hesitates, not sure where to start. _You could just wake up._ But no, he won't cower away from it again. “It's... sort of a long story,” he says, sitting down, preparing to tell it. Theon sits across from him, like they're both ready to listen to Old Nan (Theon was already saying he was too old for stories by the time Bran can remember hearing them, but that doesn't mean he never stopped to listen). “We were in the cave of the Three-Eyed Raven.”

Theon frowns. Of course, that means nothing to him. Bran can know every inch of Theon's life since the last time they saw each other – every gruesome, blood-soaked moment – but Theon can't know his without Bran telling him about it. “I have these... powers. And they told me I had to reach a tree beyond the wall. It's complicated, but apparently I have to save the world.”

 _I sound mad,_ he thinks, and Theon frowns. “So this isn't just a dream?”

“No.”

He waits for Theon to reply, but he doesn't, so Bran continues. “I went looking for the White Walkers. In my dreams, a little like now.” _Please just tell me I've gone mad and be done with it._ “And one of them touched me. You have to understand, the cave had magic around it, so they could never get in. And I broke that.”

Bran takes a deep, shaking breath. “They swarmed us. My friends – my direwolf – Summer died protecting me. Leaf blew herself up. Hodor – Hodor was torn to pieces.” _Wyllis,_ he reminds himself, but its not like Theon would have any idea who Wyllis is. “They all died so we could escape.”

“We?”

“Me and Meera,” he explains. Theon raises an eyebrow, and despite just how wrong the timing is, Bran can't help but blush. For a second, it's like nothing's changed, and Theon is teasing him about his first crush because of _course_ he is.

The moment fades quickly as he remembers Hodor, eyes wide with terror as the wights consumed him. _Wide, not white,_ he thinks, but it doesn't make him feel any better.

“There's something else,” says Theon. Gods, perhaps he has Bran's powers after all.

Bran sighs. “Before they arrived, I... had another dream,” he says. “I was at Winterfell. But years ago. Before any of us were born.” Theon is just frowning. “I saw Hodor. But he wasn't Hodor. Wyllis, his name was. Wyllis.”

 _You have to remember your name!_ rings through Theon's head, and then Bran's, and it makes him feel sick. “When they attacked, we – we needed Hodor to fight them. So I warged into him.”

“Warged?”

 _Possessed? Brainwashed?_   He's not sure how to phrase it. “I can... take over other people. Take their bodies for my own. So they're me, not them.” He can't put in words, it's not possible. “But I was... still in the dream. And when I warged into Hodor, I warged into Wyllis too.”

He hesitates. _You have to tell him. You've come too far not to._ “It broke him.”

“Broke him?”

“That's why he was the way he was!” he gasps, and he thinks he'll cry again, no, he doesn't have the right to cry– “and then he held a door for us while we ran. That's what it means, Hodor. _Hold the door_.”

Bran's gasping in dry sobs and Theon holds out a hand to him, not sure whether to touch, not sure whether he can. “I never thought of him as a real person, none of us did. He was just Hodor. The happy halfwit who carried me all the way past the wall without question, who probably couldn't question me if he wanted to. And I killed him. I let him stand there and be torn apart, and I let myself be carried away so I wouldn't have to face the consequences of my stupidity.”

Theon still doesn't say anything. “And I didn't just kill him,” he says. “I took his life from him. He spent most of his years as a helpless idiot, dreaming of the moment he died. I took everything from him. I even took his name–”

“Like Ramsay took mine.”

Bran cringes, and looks away in shame. _He knows. He knows what I've done, he knows what I am–_

“Bran, look at me.”

A hand upon his jaw. Bran looks into Theon's eyes, and his hand shakes, but they look somewhat alive now. “You didn't mean to do what you did,” he mutters, like he's not sure he has the right to say it. “You're no monster, Bran. Trust me, I know monsters.”

 _Trust me._ Strange to hear Theon say that. But this isn't the time to complain.

Theon goes on. “You didn't know–”

“Then what is the point of me?!”

Theon jumps when he snaps, pulls his hand away like he's afraid Bran will hit him. Bran is _tired_ of watching Theon be so scared all the time. He closes his eyes.

“...Didn't you say something about having to save the world from the White Walkers?”

“Fuck the world!”

Theon flinches. Of course. Theon's never heard him curse before – Bran's not sure he has cursed before.

“You don't mean that.”

Bran sighs. No, of course he doesn't mean it. He will wake up tomorrow morning and Meera will help him dress and he'll eat breakfast and he'll try and use his powers for good, even if in his experience they never have been. “I was so selfish. I only came this far north because... because I thought the Three-Eyed Raven could make me walk again. He couldn't. And here I am, a crippled boy in the middle of nowhere, trying to single-handedly defeat the White Walkers, and... all I can think about is how I've gotten everyone I love killed.”

“Not Meera,” says Theon.

“No,” he says. “Not Meera.”

_Not you either._

There's a long, awkward pause, and Bran wonders if they've run out of things to say. If they've gone through all the grief and guilt and pain, and between them now there is just... nothing. “Is that why you're here?” Theon asks, quiet. “Because... you feel guilty, and I'm the one man you know who has absolutely no right to take the moral high ground?”

“No. No, of course not,” Bran says, even though he's not sure it's true. He doesn't know why he's here. Maybe Theon just hit the nail on the head.

Theon isn't looking at him anymore, he's just looking at the ground. Bran doesn't want to know what he's thinking, so instead he looks up at the Winterfell gates.

“If we hadn't ran,” he says, “you wouldn't have killed those boys, would you?”

“I killed those boys Bran, not you.”

Bran chews on his lip. They chose to hide in that farm. Those boys wouldn't have even been at the farm if he hadn't sent them there. “I sent Osha and Rickon away,” he admits. “I told them they wouldn't be safe north of the wall. I told them to take shelter with the Umbers, that they would protect them. Because they were our bannermen.” It almost makes Bran laugh. Gods, how could he have been so _stupid_?

“You couldn't have known, Bran.”

“I could have known. But I didn't.” He sighs, and maybe that is it, maybe that's all there is to say. Except. “Why did you do it, Theon? If you didn't hate us?”

Theon sighs and a whole rush of things flash past, of the Iron Islands and its stormy seas, and the freezing snows of Winterfell, Theon's father calling him a whore and Robb shouting that day they took Osha from the forest.

“I wanted so many things,” Theon says, slowly. “To be a Stark. To be Ironborn. To be a man, powerful and respected in my own right.” Theon laughs at that, and Bran remembers pretty girls and all that blood. “I knew I couldn't have them all. I knew I had to choose. I chose wrong, and I tricked myself into thinking I didn't. And now... the only things I want are the ones I know I can never have.”

 _Robb_ , and Bran feels his face flash through Theon's mind, laughing and smiling and loving him like a brother.

“I could have understood, if you hated us. We did kidnap you after all.”

Theon is looking away again, and Bran continues. “But I can't bear the thought that you loved us, and you did it anyway.”

“It's the truth.”

“I know it is, but that doesn't make it better Theon.”

Was it always this cold at Winterfell, he wonders, or is Theon's mind seeping into his own? There's no good way to ask.

“I didn't hate you,” says Theon, tapping three fingers on the frozen ground. “I was just... stupid.”

Bran thinks this over for a moment. And then laughs.

“Well that's alright then,” he says. “I always knew you were stupid.”

Theon looks at him, and then starts laughing himself. They keep laughing until it's not bitter anymore, until they're boys again, brothers laughing and joking together in their family home.

And Bran wonders what it would be like to put a knife through Theon's neck.


End file.
